What a great holiday season it’s been so far! Between Thanksgiving, Nick’s birthday, Christmas, our anniversary, and New Year’s, this month is packed full of special events and massive blessings. One of the best parts is all the good food there is! I love being able to bring delicious foods such as this vegan pumpkin cheesecake to events for family and friends. This vegan pumpkin cheesecake was a massive hit for vegans and non-vegans alike. It is creamy, indulgent, and doesn’t use any cashews!

I am not a fan of vegan cheesecakes that use mainly cashews. Sure, it’s tasty, but it’s not my personal preference. When I need a cheesecake recipe, I need it to be creamy and cheesy. I had the most amazing pumpkin cheesecake up in Syracuse at Strong Hearts Café back in October. Ever since then I’ve been yearning for more. It was the first vegan cheesecake I’ve had where I could say “yep….that’s a spot-on substitution as a vegan” without anything lacking or being mediocre. I have to say that my recipe matches that result.

This vegan pumpkin cheesecake has the perfect creamy texture matched by a noticeable but not overwhelming pumpkin spice flavor. The crust is made of graham crackers that balances out the sweet, creamy cheesecake filling. This recipe will yield 8 sizable pieces, or it can be stretched to serve 16. Try it out and let me know what your friends and family think!!

Preheat the oven to 325F. In a food processor, pulse the graham crackers to a crumb. Add the butter and brown sugar and pulse to combine.

Spray a cheesecake pan or pie pan with nonstick spray. Press the graham crumb mixture into the base of the baking dish.

In a food processor or blender, combine the cream cheese, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, sugar, butter, pumpkin spice, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg replacer and water; add this slurry to the blender. Blend for 1-2 minutes until all filling ingredients are combined and no lumps remain. Pour the filing into the baking dish on top of the graham crumb crust.

Bake at 325 F for 60 minutes. Remove and let cool to room temperature for an hour. After cooling, refrigerate overnight. Serve the next day. Enjoy!

All of a sudden I’ve manifested this burning desire to bake cakes and I can’t get rid of it. I’ve been baking quite a few cakes, but this vegan peanut butter cake is my favorite of the lot so far. This particular cake is comprised of a base peanut butter cake that is moist, flavorful, and absolutely rich and satisfying. I can’t get enough of it! Although the decorating can get a little tedious, the cake itself is easy to bake!

This cake takes about 15 minutes to mix and another 30 minutes to bake. Overall, it’s about a 45 minute process. So worth it! I chose to make a 3-layer cake, but you could also use this recipe to bake two, 8×8 inch sheet cakes, or about 24 individual cupcakes. The baking time will vary but the end result will be just as delicious!

For my decorating, I chose to take this in the direction of…Reeses! Vegan Reeses, of course. In between each layer of cake theres a chocolate frosting and a thin layer of peanut butter. On top is a chocolate drip, crushed peanuts, and vegan chocolate peanut butter cups. The chocolate balances out well with the peanut butter cake. This cake really tasted like a large Reeses cup! A simple vanilla frosting would probably be good, as well. How would you decorate this vegan peanut butter cake?

In a large bowl, combine the almond milk and apple cider vinegar. Whisk and let sit for 5 minutes to curdle like a buttermilk. After curdling, whisk in the sugar, vegetable oil, peanut butter, and vanilla. The mixture will look almost foamy or bubbly.

In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, peanut powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Once mixed, slowly stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Whisk during the combining process to avoid lumps.

Spray three, 9-inch cake pans with nonstick spray. Pour the batter evenly amongst the 3 pans. Bake at 350 F for 24-28 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake. This recipe could be used for other sized cake pans or even cupcakes, but the baking time will vary.

Alright. I’ve done the math and finally solved it. Banana bread consists of 1% banana, 99% perfection. Does anyone else go through banana bread phases? I’ll bake 3-4 loaves back to back and smash it, then forget for months until the phase repeats and I fall in love over again. How can something so simple be so good?!

This phase is chocolate banana bread. This simple recipe is vegan, gluten free, sugar free, and oil free. It is quick to make and doesn’t leave you with a kitchen full of dishes. This chocolate banana bread is sweet, moist, and a healthy snack to have around!

I love the light, cakey texture of this specific banana bread. This is coming from the coconut flour in the recipe! I purchase this coconut flour; if you don’t have coconut flour, you could use extra ground oats or another flour such as buckwheat or spelt. However, you will have to use less almond milk and the texture won’t be as cakey. All good, nonetheless!

Banana bread pro tip: place your banana bread in the fridge to get cold before you eat it! I swear that banana bread is 50x better cold than room temp. What do you think!? Try out this vegan chocolate banana bread recipe for yourself and let me know what you think. :)

Sometimes you just need a big bowl of vegan beef stew to come home to and make you feel at ease. This vegan beef stew recipe is wholesome, hearty, and can be make in a slow-cooker while you’re out and about. This recipe is entirely vegan, sugar free, and dairy free!

I was never big on beef stew as a kid, and it never really struck me as a go-to type of food. For some reason, though, last week I was hit with a massive craving for it. Weird? Possibly. Feel so right? You betcha. There’s nothing quite as pleasant as the smells of stew permeating the house as you tuck in for dinner. Long day, PJs on, stew in belly. Just the way I like it.

This vegan beef stew recipe is fairly mess-free to make; it can either be made in one single pot, or in a pan and a crockpot. You know I like easy cleanup these days.

I love the addition of the beefless tips here as the vegan meat substitute. They are flavorful and hearty, which leaves you very satisfied. You could also add peas if you’d like, or swap the celery with peas as the green ingredient.

Let me know if you try this out! Comment below or tag me on Instagram if you do!

Heat a large pan or pot and add the beefless tips and olive oil. Cook for 7-8 minutes, until the sides of the beefless tips are crisp and browned.

Once browned, fill a large pot with the beefless tips and the remaining ingredients (except for flour and cornstarch). **See Notes for Slow Cooker Instructions

Bring the contents to a boil. Once boiling, let simmer for 30-45 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the sauce starts to thicken.

Once thoroughly cooked and thick, mix the flour and cornstarch in a small bowl. Add 3-4 TBSP water to the bowl and mix thoroughly until no clumps remain. Once mixed, pour into the simmering pot and stir well. Cook for another 5-6 minutes; the contents will begin to thicken further.

Remove from heat and enjoy! The stew will thicken further after cooling.

**If using a slow cooker, place all ingredients (except for flour and cornstarch) in the slow cooker at step 2. Let cook for 2 hours. Proceed to step 4; allow the slow cooker to run another 1 hour after stirring into the flour/cornstarch mixture. Enjoy!

Deep dive with me in this vegan red beans and rice with sausage. The new vegan Beyond Meat sausage is blowing me and my expectations away. This meal is so savory, comforting, and extremely simple to make. It is vegan, gluten free, soy free, and packed with protein!

I don’t know what I expected from this Beyond Meat sausage, but it definitely wasn’t this. Innovation is amazing. Most vegan sausage are okay…but not even close to “real sausage”. They’re usually soft and dry if you ask me, so I’ve never been big on getting them. It’s not necessary. This Beyond Meat sausage is so realistic it’s a little freaky. It has an exterior crispy casing like regular sausage. It oozes oils and grease as you cook it which is amaaaazing. And it’s full of flavor of moisture! It’s got me excited and feeling ~☆*°inSpIred~~*°☆ in terms of creating recipes with it. They also have regular brats and sweet Italian flavor.

This recipe is a true comfort food, all while being healthy. This is very win-win. You get tons of protein from the beans and sausage. There’s no soy or sugar or oils. The flavor is savory with a little kick that keeps you coming back for another bite. This is perfect after a long day or a tough workout to help you feel recharged and satisfied.

This vegan red beans and rice recipe is so simple to follow and you will already have most ingredients/spices on hand. It can be made in a single pot. Gotta love easy cleanup! Not to mention, it gets the whole house smelling delicious and soothing.

Try out this vegan red beans and rice yourself and let me know what you think! Have you tried the new Beyond Meat sausages yet? I’m interested to see how others are using them!

Slice the sausages and cook in a pan or large pot on medium heat until lightly browned (about 8-9 minutes). Once the sausage is browned, place the sausage in a large pot with the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then let simmer until the liquid cooks down and the rice is fully cooked, about 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

Halo Top recently launched 7 NEW dairy free halo top pint flavors to add to their already current 7 dairy free flavors!! With the flavor options up to 14 now, I decided to review the 7 new dairy free flavors! I am beyond excited about this launch, and I can’t wait to see what Halo Top has in store in the future! I remember enjoying Halo Top’s dairy flavors and helping them grow as a small business before I was vegan (3+ years ago), and my heart always yearned for them after becoming vegan . Seeing a company recognize their audience’s desires for dairy free products and providing that seriously says a lot about the company; Halo Top has a big place in my heart.

I pride myself in providing superfluous, detailed reviews, so I hope this helps you make a decision of which flavors to try! If you want me to retroactively review the original 7 dairy free flavors, let me know! Conclusion from this review: EVERY dairy free flavor is great except you could skip birthday cake and cinnamon roll.

PANCAKES AND WAFFLES – This one initially didnt rank high on my excite-o-meter but wow…..I have a strong feeling this is going to replace my addiction to sea salt caramel and caramel macchiato. The maple swirl is WOWOW and I love that the “waffle” mix-ins aren’t hard and crunchy, they’re just soft and melt. Kinda reminds me of snickerdoodle cookie dough? Love. The future is vegan with food this good.

CANDY BAR – To be honest, I wasn’t initially eager about trying this one. Everyone always said “oh its like a snickers! A snickers! Its chocolate with peanuts!” and I’m like okay cool? So basically like the peanut butter cup flavor but not? Well WHAT EVERYONE FAILED TO MENTION. IS. Theres also a CHOCOLATE and a CARAMEL SWIRL??? Why didn’t yall tell me that!!! This flavor is absolutely great and I love how dynamic it is. I hope you can see all the aspects in the pic. The base is like a soft nougat flavor/texture, almost like the inside of a 3 Musketeers. Then you’ve got the peanuts, caramel swirl, and chocolate swirl of a Snickers. The candiest bars of all candy bars.

VANILLA MAPLE – I like this flavor?? I assumed it would be the most boring and you’d easily taste the earthy vegan protein, but I was wrong. This is sweet and creamy (takes a couple more mins than some flavors to thaw, but becomes creamy). I don’t taste maple, but my boyfriend does. To me, this tastes like a pleasant vanilla beannnn cream. There’s something so right about a classic vanilla bean ice cream. I prefer this well over the dairy free bday cake flavor and I’ll be buying this flavor again when I’m needing a creamy classic fix! would be great on oatmeal/10

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH – This flavor does not disappoint when it comes to mix ins. It’s always upsetting if you’re left hunting for mix-ins, but this flavor has cookie dough a plenty!!! Always some dough in site and it is so delicious. I thought I’d hate the chocolate chips bc crunch in ice cream is gross imoooo…but these chips are teeny and not crunchy; too good. I can’t quite pin the flavor of the base cream (this one is so smooth in texture!)….the color makes me expect chocolate but I don’t taste any at all – it’s just neutral? I supposeeee I must have another; for science.

CHOCOLATE ALMOND CRUNCH – I read pretty bad reviews of this but I actually like it. I dont get any chocolate taste; that’s fine. The base is a creamyyy almond extract flavor (love) and theres bits of almonds throughout. I thought I’d hate crunchies inside but theyre the perfect small size and texture. I can see how many people wouldnt be a fan of the almond extract flavor, but I personally love it and this flavor. Just call it ‘almond 2 tha maxXx’ instead.

TOASTED COCONUT – This is one of those products where you sit back and go “wait…this is vegan? This is rather enjoyable. How is that possible.” I wasn’t expecting the creaminess of this since many coconut ice creams are icy. The flavor is SPOT ON toasted coconut. Not coconut. Toasted coconut. Only thing about this is I’m not always in the mood for the texture since the coconut shreds are heavyyyy present. But then other times I’m like yes gimeeee all them shreds. Iono just an observation that may change if you’ll like it or not.

BIRTHDAY CAKE – I’m just not a fan of this. I tried multiple pints, hoping it would grow on me, but it just doesn’t. The flavor is artificial and the texture isn’t anything spectacular. Maybe I’m trying to directly compare this to the dairy version I remember having many years back? It pales in comparison, and just doesn’t satisfy the craving I’m expecting. I can taste the protein undertones in this, which is never great.

Every recipe posted here is nutritious and fit for a healthy lifestyle. Newest recipes are fully vegan, since I adopted a vegan lifestyle in November 2015. I have a best-selling cookbook on Amazon called 30 Under 300, and I also have two ebooks available.

If you'd like to know more about my weightloss & journey into a healthy lifestyle, visit my about me page. If you'd like to know more about my journey into veganism, visit this page.